It has gone further than forum chit chat. It has now become abusive.
The new rule would have stopped some of the problems.
The current rules are fine, they allow me to lock and delete threads and ban members.
Ad Hominem comments/personal attacks towards anyone - staff, forum member, or a visitor who is likely to view it on the forums - is subject to the message being deleted and action taken against the user, regardless of how pertinent or thoughtful the rest of the message might be.
They also prohibit members posting threads about bans, thread closures, etc
You may not publicly complain about or demand a reason for another user's ban, the deletion of a message, or the deletion/closure of a thread. Any discussion about warnings, bans, message deletion, thread deletion and thread closure should be done over private email between the person concerned and the moderators.
I will see if things calm down, if they do not then I will start to implement the current rules.